Sinners and Saints
by sonsofmogh
Summary: "Let it be known that at Noon on the Twenty-Fifth Day of December in the Year 1998, the war criminal Harry James Potter, Undesirable No. 1, shall be put to Death for crimes against the Empire." He had harboured his secret for years, but time was running out for him to act on them. So, what would Draco Malfoy have to say to Harry Potter the night before the execution?


_"Let it be known that at Noon on the Twenty-Fifth Day of December in the Year 1998, the war criminal Harry James Potter, Undesirable No. 1, shall be put to Death for crimes against the Empire. This Execution will henceforth take place in Diagon Alley as a reminder to all Citizens of the unrest that the Dark Lord has so generously ended on their behalf." _

The words flashed across the front page of the _Daily Prophet_ as Draco Malfoy sipped his morning tea. He looked pointedly at the sugar dish to draw his eyes from the dirty, dishevelled countenance in the article's accompanying photograph. It had been about a year and a half since Draco had last seen Harry Potter face-to-face, and after Christmas Day — the very next day, to be exact — he would never do so again.

The story of Potter's capture was a common one for those fleeing the Dark Lord's regime. After nearly being caught by Snatchers in early April, Potter's efforts to stay in hiding were severely curbed by the death of Ron Weasley during that confrontation. His movements after that became erratic, and a few months later, a similar incident saw to Hermione Granger's demise. By that point, a large number of what was once called the Order of the Phoenix had already been eradicated, and it was only a matter of time, Draco's father had postulated, before Potter was apprehended, as well. And he was correct.

Draco stole a glance at the headline picture and at the defeated look on Potter's face. It was one that Draco understood well, one rooted in hopelessness and loss and crushing guilt of failure. The only difference between the two of them was that Draco's side had prevailed in the war; Potter's had not.

His hand tightened on the handle of the teacup as he recalled the petty squabbles that had marked his relationship with Harry Potter in their youth. From the first time they met, it had been one conflict after another, escalating in hostility, and that was how things between them were set to end. Potter was going to die, and Draco would live to reap the fruits of his labours, to exist in the world for which he had fought to achieve.

Splinters dug into his fingers as the teacup shattered in his clenched hand. This world, this pure-blooded haven, was the culmination of the Dark Lord's dream, as well as a number of other influential families in the magical community. The Malfoys were sitting prominently atop this new-born societal dais, right next to their esteemed leader.

The forest green walls of the room began to feel a lot closer than they had mere seconds before. Draco pushed himself out of his chair and wiped the blood seeping from his palm onto the tablecloth, intent only on escaping the confines of the house. Cool winter air blasted his cheeks as he stepped outside, and despite the burning in his lungs, it was the first time in hours that he could breathe.

As he strode away from the manor, Draco focused on the few things on the grounds that had not changed. He didn't look at the missing peacocks or the naked flower beds or the skeletal trees; everything else was cloaked in snow and could be anything he wished it to be, rather than the austere expanse it had become during the Dark Lord's occupation.

His forced focus did nothing to shunt away the lingering thoughts that had resurfaced upon seeing Potter's face again. Passing years had done nothing to expel them, but in a matter of hours, the execution would effectively do it for him. There was, however, no escaping the fact that all the old feelings were starting to creep their way back into him.

Feelings about Potter.

Draco's feet stopped of their own accord. This was nonsense. Potter was going to die, and he deserved to die for his pompous moral superiority, for the arrogance in thinking he and his little group of misfits could defeat the most feared wizard in history. No one could possibly be that stupid and live long enough to tell about it. And Potter wasn't nearly as special as he was made out to be.

"Draco," he heard a soft voice call from his left, tearing him away from his thoughts. He had thought himself alone, but the interruption was not an unwelcome one.

"Mother."

Narcissa linked her arm with his and patted his forearm. "If you don't look too closely, it seems as beautiful as it ever was."

Though he didn't answer, Draco agreed whole-heartedly and was relieved that there was somewhere his mother could hide from their undesirable houseguest. Few places remained where the Dark Lord's hand had not touched; fortunately, the countryside held little appeal to someone like him. Nothing to conquer, really.

With a sigh, Narcissa turned to look at Draco intently. "Tomorrow will be a large victory for the Dark Lord."

"Potter was a dead man the moment he was born," he grunted. "He's lucky that he made it as far as he did. Better him than me, I should think."

Glancing over at his mother, Draco expected to see agreement written on her face, but he was surprised to find Narcissa's face drawn into a tight line of concern. "I'm not sure you mean that," she said quietly.

The only reaction Draco could muster was to stare at her. Apprehension and worry were a given presence, but a glint of something else sparkled in her eye. He couldn't quite place it, but it smacked of that smug look parents would get when they knew something their child didn't want them to know. Draco hated that look. "You're mad."

She raised a frank brow. "Am I?"

Draco refused to confirm or deny her statement, but her words troubled him greatly. He had thought himself careful about this affliction, this darkest of secrets, but if he had been this obvious, then —

"Nobody else knows, Draco. Not even your father." She smiled at his heavy sigh of relief. "You hide it well, but there are some things a mother always knows."

"It's nothing, Mother," Draco said defensively. "Some stupid fantasy I can't be rid of, but it will pass." He diverted his eyes toward the snow-draped landscape. Anywhere but into Narcissa's gaze.

Seeming to sense his mood, Narcissa let her hands fall to her sides. "I agree, your choice is a bit . . . unfortunate, but I suppose you can't help it or you would have." She moved forward to pluck a wilted flower from its bush and shook her head that no one had pruned them for the winter. "Draco, I hope you know that I love you, even if your desires are, shall we say, unconventional."

Relief burned hotly in Draco's gut at her words, but his mother's approval could only get him so far. He doubted this twisted fantasy would earn him any favours with the Dark Lord, his fellow Death Eaters, or even his own father. Draco was expected to marry well and have a brood of pure-blooded children to serve the future interests of the Empire.

"You should go see him."

Draco whipped his head to gape at her. "You can't be serious."

She regarded him carefully. "If you don't, I think you'll regret it. Actually, I know you will."

His mouth opened, set to deny her statement, but when Draco tried to speak the words, they would not come. They would not come because he knew she was right. If he didn't purge Potter from his system while he still had the chance, he would be stuck under the spell of this absurd crush for an intolerable amount of time. He had approximately twenty-four hours to get over this nonsense.

"Fine," Draco conceded. "I'll Floo to the Ministry and request an audience."

Narcissa smiled. "Best of luck, darling." Her face soon twisted into an expression of consternation. "But be careful. Make certain you tell no one why you're going, or you may find yourself in a cell next door. Don't speak to him unless you are alone."

Draco nodded, his thoughts much the same on that matter. "I will, Mother." He gave her a brief smile and started towards the house before he stopped and said over his shoulder, "Thank you."

Mere words could not articulate how much Draco hated bureaucrats. They were nothing but pompous, self-important fools who took far too much pleasure in thwarting simple processes with petty minutiae and copious, pointless procedures. It had taken over eight hours for him to be granted visitation rights to Potter's cell, and no small amount of angry posturing had gone into assuring that the visit was to be unsupervised.

But here he was, standing outside the cell door with the latch in his hand, yet Draco hesitated. He knew what he wanted to say, but how to go about saying them seemed like the most daunting of tasks. Narcissa had made this sound like something that he needed to do and was good for him, but the anxiety that was rapidly building in his chest felt like it could explode at any second. Every atom of him screamed to go back the way he came, but it would have been foolish to go through all of that just to turn back.

With that, he opened the door.

In their years at school, Draco had seen Potter bloodied, unconscious, and brought low, but never had he seen his childhood rival so _broken_. Potter's eyes were blank and staring at they met his, and Draco couldn't stop the cool shiver of revulsion that the other man's appearance elicited. Filth crusted Potter's clothing and skin, and the air was saturated with the stench of unwashed flesh and human waste.

Fortunately, Draco had convinced the security wizard that he was a loyal Death Eater whose wand shouldn't be taken away during visitation. With a few cleaning and scouring charms, the room lost its rancid odour, and Potter looked like he'd seen the business end of a scrub brush recently. "So here we are, Potter."

Potter blinked up at him. "Why are you here, Malfoy?" he wheezed through cracked lips. "Come to gloat?"

Draco shook his head. "I could, you know. But I won't. That's not why I came." He slowly approached that sad, drooping form and conjured a cup. Once he filled it with water, he held it up to Potter's mouth and watched him drink it down greedily. Then he offered another.

"How do you know I didn't just poison you?" Draco asked after the third glass of water.

"You couldn't kill anyone, Malfoy," Potter replied, his face nearly resembling that of a human being again. "Not even me. You can't even kill a dead man." Deeply inhaling the newly-freshened air in the cell, Potter added, "But for what it's worth, I was sort of hoping it was poison. I should know better than to expect mercy from you, I suppose."

Absorbing Potter's slight on his character, Draco said evenly, "You should know they wouldn't let me leave if I killed you and stole the Dark Lord's public execution. Either that or they'd execute me, instead."

"Then why _are_ you here?"

The question — one Potter had every right to ask — hung in the air, but Draco could not, for the life of him, formulate an answer. Instead, he pulled a couple of biscuits from his pocket and held them close to Potter's mouth. "Not poison, unfortunately, unless you're allergic to walnuts."

Potter struggled to refuse the offering, Draco could see, but he eventually gave in and gobbled the biscuits that would probably serve as his last meal. "I would've brought more, but I didn't think I would get away with more than that. They almost didn't let me bring those in, but I told the guard I'd eat them in front of you."

"Why didn't you?"

"I'm not here to torture you, Potter. Regardless of what you may think, I don't like the idea of people suffering and dying." Draco turned away, not wanting Potter to see the uncertainty that had crept onto his features. He had been just on the cusp of saying more, but no small measure of cowardice held him back. "Not even you."

Neither of them spoke for several minutes, and Draco didn't dare face Potter for most of that time. It was all he could handle to deal with the war going on in his head. He had come to tell Potter how he felt in some grand gesture, but the idea of it made him feel nauseous. Potter would mock him for sure, and there was no telling whether his secret would be revealed at some point before the execution.

_Harry wouldn't do that. _

Draco was surprised that he had thought of Potter as 'Harry'. That name had never escaped his lips without a scathing tone, but in his head, it sounded like something he had said comfortably dozens of times. "Harry," he mouthed, awed at the feel of it on his lips. "Harry," he repeated, this time aloud.

Potter didn't speak, but when Draco glanced over his shoulder, his counterpart was regarding him carefully. "Draco, why did you come here?"

"Because I had to," Draco growled. "But it was clearly a mistake."

This was madness. What was he expecting, a declaration of undying love from a boy who had hated him for the better part of his life? If he truly believed that, then Draco might as well sit down next to Potter and be put out of his misery, as well. "Say hello to your executioner for me, Potter."

"Draco, wait!"

There was a hint of desperation in Potter's voice, which made Draco stop with his hand on the door. Curiosity won out, and Draco turned back around, arms crossed, and waited for Potter to start talking. For a time, all he received was a slack-jawed stare. "I can't believe it," Potter finally managed. "You _actually_ care if I live or die."

"Don't be daft," Draco snapped. "You've been a pain in my arse since we were eleven years old. Your death would bring me no small measure of satisfaction, I should think."

"Bollocks," Potter said. "I think it bothers you and that you came here because you want me to forgive you." With a scoff, Potter rolled his eyes. "Merlin knows why, since you've always considered me beneath you."

For the first time since he arrived, Draco saw a spark of life in Potter's attitude. He was more like his old self than ever. If Draco were to be honest with himself, he was slightly enthralled by it and wasn't going to stop goading his ex-nemesis. "You are beneath me. That's why _you're_ shackled to a chair and _I_ live in a mansion."

"It always comes back to that, doesn't it?" Potter pressed. "Well, I think you're full of shit. If you were happy with your lot, you wouldn't be here, hoping to get some sort of sick satisfaction from me. What you've done can't _be_ forgiven, Draco. You gave your life to Voldemort, and you don't have the balls to make up for it."

Anger bubbled in Draco's gut, and before he realised what he was doing, he stomped across the room and brought the back of his hand across Potter's face. "Shut up!" he hissed. "You don't know what it's like, so don't even pretend that you do."

A small trickle of blood escaped the corner of Potter's mouth, which was curled into a wry smile. "Does that get you off, Malfoy? Hitting someone who can't hit you back? Is that what you think about when you —"

Something flared to life inside of Draco. Potter was mocking him, mocking his crude desire, and it made his body tighten to an uncomfortable level of arousal underneath his robes. No longer in control of himself, Draco yanked Potter's head towards his own and tasted the rusty tang of blood as their lips collided. Potter's mouth was hot and stale, but Draco didn't care. He could taste the fiery flavour of hatred on Potter's tongue, and it only made him want more.

When he finally withdrew, Draco was barely able to breathe as he stepped back. He shouldn't have done that. He _really_ shouldn't have done that. A few words from Potter, and his life would be forfeit. He'd just kissed a _man_, but gods, he'd liked it. He also had an overwhelming urge to do it again and to press their bodies together as tightly as they would go and to feel Potter respond to it.

_No_. He had to get control over himself. "Not one word, Potter," Draco finally managed to grind out. "Not one bloody word."

What Draco had expected, he had no idea; however, one thing he hadn't counted on was laughter. Potter threw his head back and cackled madly at the ceiling, the sound of his amusement reverberating through Draco's very bones.

"Stop it! Stop it!" Draco screeched, covering his ears in a futile effort to block out the sound.

Potter's laughter didn't stop. Instead, it intensified, dragging out so long that his lungs could no longer produce enough air to emit sound. His chest quaked with it, and tears streamed down his face, mingling with the blood smeared on his jaw from Draco's kiss. When his head lolled back forward, Draco nearly took a step backwards at the borderline-maniacal look on Potter's face. And then those laughs contorted into sobs.

Harry Potter was crying, and he, Draco Malfoy, wanted to make it stop.

"I'm dead, Draco," Potter whispered. "I'm already dead. Whatever it is you're looking for, you're not going to get it from me. I just want to die."

Draco didn't even know what he was looking for. He thought it was to disabuse himself of this foolish crush, or maybe to let it run its course, but perhaps Potter had been right all along. However, what he did know for certain was that he wasn't going to walk out that door while Potter was laid so low.

Potter wanted to die; Potter was going to die. Nothing Draco could say or do would change that, but a grim realisation hit him at that moment. Potter had to die, but he didn't have to be executed.

Approaching his counterpart once more, Draco wound his fingers into the lank hair at the nape of Potter's neck and gently tilted the head until they faced each other, a mere breath apart. This time, when Draco's lips touched Potter's, he whispered, "Harry." Whether by reflex or by choice (Draco neither knew nor cared), Potter's lips moved against his, and Draco wasn't sure if he'd ever felt such a thrill. It made his intentions that much harder to carry out, but in the back of his mind, he reasserted that it was something he needed to do.

Draco's other hand caressed Potter's cheek and came to rest right beneath his chin. Pulling back only slightly — just enough to sever the intensity of the kiss but not break it off entirely — Draco sharply yanked Potter's head to the side. The sound of snapping bone echoed in the room and through the palms of his hands, and he took one last taste before he let Potter's lifeless head droop to the side. Those green eyes of his stared through bent glasses, piercing into Draco yet seeing nothing.

Carefully wiping the smeared blood from his face with his sleeve, Draco plucked one of Potter's hands from its bonds and, with a brief squeeze, dropped it to the side. He repeated the action with the other hand. Stepping back, he observed his handiwork and walked from the cell without looking back.

At the security desk, Draco stopped with an annoyed sigh. "Potter managed to work himself free, and he attacked me. He's dead. If the Dark Lord wants his public execution, he's going to have to find someone else." Ignoring the sputtering guard, Draco left.

The chair upon the platform afforded a broad view of Diagon Alley and the mass of people gathered there to witness the death of Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived. Draco watched them all craning for a better glimpse of the act with an almost detached disinterest. They didn't matter. Nothing mattered. He was dead already. His existence was more a formality of chemical reaction than actual life.

Somewhere, he felt a twinge as he saw Narcissa's face crinkled in an uncharacteristic display of public emotion, but it was as if she were someone else's mother and not his own. Several familiar faces littered the crowd, yet they were all strangers in how they perceived him. He simply was not Draco Malfoy anymore, and that was precisely to the Dark Lord's design.

"Let it be known," the Dark Lord stated in a magically amplified voice, "that your Lord has a sense of justice. No man will die where he may serve. _All_ of you have the chance to serve me, even those of you who are sullied by filthy Muggle blood. It matters not, as long as your loyalty is assured. Serve me well, and you will be rewarded; turn your back —" he turned to look pointedly at Draco, "— and you will see just how powerful an enemy I can be."

The words floated through Draco's head. Every person present, save for Narcissa, believed these words to be directed at Harry Potter, whose body he wore like a suit with the aid of Polyjuice Potion that had been forced down his throat; Draco knew differently. The Dark Lord's inner circle would know who truly sat in that chair soon enough, and it would stand as a stark reminder of who was all-powerful and who, frankly, was not.

Suddenly, the idea of being inside of Harry's body seemed the most ridiculous thing in the world. Draco felt laughter sparking to life in his belly, and before he knew it, it spilled out of his mouth in gales, forcing tears from his eyes. Through squinted eyes, he could just barely make out the Dark Lord's startled gaze and the wand being raised and aimed at him.

For a moment, he saw green eyes, staring lifelessly at the ceiling of the filthy cell. And then he saw green.


End file.
